Mauraders mauraded
by Natalilly
Summary: Next Maurader challange accepted. James gets in a bit of a pickle when a practical joke he and Sirius are trying to play on Snape backfires...
1. Default Chapter

_Challenge fic_

**Marauders marauded**

****

Disclaimer: You know the drill. The characters aren't mine, they never were and they never will be. Shame on you if you don't know who they really belong to

Author's note; This is a challenge fic set by my friend R.J Nicoli (link) We set each other ten, six Harry Potter, two Belgariad and two Lord of the Rings. The conclusion of each must be totally feasible, and completely in character.  

The requirements are

**Characters: **Severus, Sirrus, James, Remus and Peter

**Item: **A large barrel

**Quote: **"Sirrus, why are you standing on your head?" 

**Conclusion: **Peter running about on all fours (note: He's not allowed to be a rat) 

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The Great Hall was rather deserted, but they had been expecting that. Not many people had signed up to stay over Christmas. Those who were going were all leaving that afternoon, so they were either packing their trunks, or standing by, out of the way, helping their friends pack and saying their goodbyes.

But there were a few not joining in the leaving day rush.

**Sirrus** Black was grinning like a maniac, running all around the Great Hall, dodging between chairs and tables, or, when the need be, going over them instead with a quaffle filched from their flying professor's office under his arm. 

In close pursuit was **James**, leaping and diving, trying desperately to catch Sirrus, performing some fairly spectacular leaps and bounds in the process

**Peter** stood off to the sides, hand gripping his wand so tightly his knuckles white, his tongue between his teeth, eyes wide and glassy, watching avidly. 

The game had just started to get dirty, the pair yelled at each other, throwing anything they could pick up- plates, goblets, chairs… whatever fell to hand.

Sirrus picked up a jug of pumpkin juice and hurled it at his pursuer, laughing his strange, barked laugh, vaulting over a chair, throwing it backwards as he went.

 James looked alarmed, before whipping out his wand and blasting the jug to pieces, skidding to a halt to avoid smashing into the tumbled chair. 

However, he hadn't really considered the fact that the jug WAS in fact full when he blasted it…

Pumpkin juice positively exploded all over the place, soaking now regretful boy, and anything else within a three metre radius from top to bottom. 

"FOUL!" He screamed, shaking his hands disgustedly, wringing out his top. "I said foul!" Sirrus skidded to a halt and looked around, frowning slightly at the disturbance.

"Stop laughing, it's not that funny!" he protested as Sirrus took one look at him and collapsed laughing, rolling about on the floor with tears pouring down his cheeks, clutching the quaffle to his chest.  
"Peter, that was a foul, wasn't it?" James asked the little chubby boy, his lips quirking, fighting to keep his look of hurt indignance with Sirrus laughing so hysterically.  

Peter looked a little affronted, eyes darting to the positively helpless Sirrus, then back to James, not wanting to displease either of them.

"W-well…" He stuttered, eyes still flicking to both of them.  
"N-N-Not a foul…" Sirrus managed to stammer, trying to sit upright

"I-I don't know…" Peter interjected quietly "M-M-Maybe we should…" 

"Foul! You're not allowed to chuck things like food, Sirrus!" James said, giving in and grinning.   
"What about that goblet you hurled before?" Sirrus objected, finally getting his feet back under him, dusting his back off, muttering a few left over chuckles. 

"Well, you didn't say 'Foul'. You have to say it before it's recognised…" James said with mock pomposity. 

Sirrus tossed the quaffle at the centre one of three** barrels** they had set in the middle of the teacher's table as a 'goals'. They had been playing an on foot version of Quidditch, seeing the pitch had been undergoing a resurfacing over the Christmas break.

The quaffle sank slowly into the barrel, finally settling on the bottom with a dull thunk. 

"It still counts…" Sirrus objected advancing on his friend, leaping up on the Slytherin table, stomping along its length forcefully.   
James laughed at his antic "But YOU didn't get drenched!" He said grinning widely, pulling his top out in front of him and off the skin, wringing it out theatrically  
" That's because I'm better then you." Sirrus said, bearing his teeth in a vicious grin.   
"I-I think…" Peter interjected wincingly

"BETTER then me?" James said incredulously, enjoying himself immensely, "You just got lucky… probably tripped, accidentally ducking or something."   
"You WISH!" Sirrus barked a laugh, kicking several Slytherin goblets off the table. "You're just sour because, you, Gryffindor seeker, couldn't catch my arse…"  Sirrus turned his back on James and wiggled his butt in his friend's direction

James whipped out his wand and mumbled a spell as fast as he could, firing a pale blue jet of light at Sirrus before his friend could realise it was coming. Sirrus whipped around, but wasn't fast enough to dodge it, catching the spell full in the chest, flipping upside down, and hitting the wall behind him, sliding down onto his head  
"Couldn't catch your arse?" James mocked, blowing on the tip of his wand mockingly. 

The doors boomed open suddenly; making the smug James leapt several inches.   
"Hey, hey, clam down! It's just me!" **Remus** said soothingly. His cheeks were pink from the cold, and he had snow in his hair. "I've just been looking for you everywhere! When you said you were playing Quidditch I thought you were…" He paused, taking in the giant scoreboard painted on the wall, with Peter underneath, the barrels, the sodden James, the carnage and… **"Sirrus, why are you standing on your head?" **He asked, frowning, deciding to tackle one awkward question at once. 

Sirrus slumped, his knees over his face, before groggily getting back to his feet again, rubbing his head

"James…" he groaned wincing as he touched the top of his head checking for bumps. 

"A little disagreement about the rules." James said airily. Remus nodded slowly, not daring to ask, but wanting to know… He finally gave in to curiosity

"What rules? What were you doing….?" He asked, as if bracing himself for the worst. Sirrus flung his arms out grandly, obviously overcoming his encounter with the wall. 

"Indoor Quidditch!" he announced loudly. Remus opened his mouth, but closed it, obviously deciding against whatever he was going to say, and chose a different tack.   
"You might want to get this tidied up, I saw Snape sneaking up this way when I came here… if he sees it like this…"  
"We'll string him from the roof by his underpants!" James finished. Remus closed his eyes, as if preying for patience  
"No… he'll squeal to a teacher." Remus said with exaggerated tolerance. Sirrus snorted and shrugged  
"Their fault the pitch isn't running." He said, nonchalantly.   
"The last thing you want is detention on the holidays!" He said, fighting the snap in his voice. "Look, just clean it up… and you can play… tomorrow… Snape's going home for the Christmas this year, so you can do whatever you want… I just don't want any trouble!'

James rolled his eyes and Sirrus intoned a rather whiney "Yeeeees, Reeemuuuus." Before getting out his wand and righting the goblets he'd knocked over before. "But I'll hold you to that 'whatever I want' ting…" He added, irritably.

In all it took only a few minutes to right all that they'd upset in their mad game, and Remus even came out with a handing wash and dry spell for James' pumpkin stained clothing. 

All in all they managed to tidy up quite well.   
"We might as well go back to the common room seeing old boring britches over there won't let us play." Sirrus said but there was a faint humour back in his voice. Remus gave a little shrug, smiling.   
"I've got gobstones!" Peter offered, taking out his bag of them, and waving them about, looking delighted to be able to actually have some input. Sirrus sighed loudly and James wrinkled his nose  
"I guess it'll do." James admitted reluctantly.

They were almost at the portrait hole when they bumped into **Snape**. Sirrus instantly set himself in bravado mode.

"What're you slithering around for at this time, Snivellus?" He asked, eyeing the sallow skinned boy with great dislike. "Shouldn't you be packing for when you slide back down that drainhole from where you came from?"   
Snape eyed them all with great dislike. "Already packed, I'm just collecting something I left in the great hall." He said haughtily, shoving past them "Excuse me, but I have better things to do then bandy words with a group of thugs." 

He headed off down the hall and James spat where he had moments before stood.   
"Jerk, probably seeing if we've left the place wrecked."  He snarled. "Come on."   
the walked the last few steps to the portrait of the fat lady in her pink dress. The frame of her picture had been bordered on the inside with winking red and green lights 

"Password?" She asked, in a bored tone.

"_Plum duff_" Remus supplied. The portrait opened slowly

"You know, you guys didn't HAVE to stay Christmas here with me, you know..." Sirrus said, climbing through the hole. James followed, giving his partner in crime a shove in the backside to get him moving faster.   
"What, and miss the opportunity to have the run of the castle for a few months? Get off! I'd NEVER let you have that privilege on your own."   
Remus climbed in, saying nothing, but when he was almost through there was a tearing sound, and an upset squeak, and he turned around to see Peter, looking horrified as his gobstones bounced all over the place. 

"No! How are we going to play! Wait, guys!'" He called, hopping back out, to collect them.   
Remus looked once at the pair of hooligan friends now chuckling at Peter's predicament on one side of the hole, to Peter, **running about on all fours**, collecting his fallen stones from the floor and sighed, sitting sideways in the hole and covering his face. It was going to be one looooong Christmas.

****


	2. Backfired

_Challenge fic_

**Backfire**

Disclaimer: I am thoroughly sick of writing these… do I have to, Mummy?

Author's note: Well, I thought I was going to leave this fic as it was, but it seems the challenge continues- spurred on by SnufflestheInsane (http: I might even keep this up, if people read and review- and send me the next chapter challenge, remember, I need Characters (keep it marauder era, though…) An item, a quote and a conclusion. Be as inventive as you like!

Oh and also for those of you who politely pointed out- and those of you who rudely pointed out as well, my last fic I kept spelling Sirius with two r's. Somehow my computer's auto spell check does it, although I don't believe it's a word. I've turned the auto check off for your piece of mind- so it should be correct.

**Characters:** James Sirius Remus Peter Snape Lily

**Item:** A bucketful of crickets

**Quote:** Why are you chasing a squirrel up the whomping willow?

**Conclusion:** James gets covered in crickets courtesy of Lily

**James** and **Sirius** watched as the house elves started piling trunks up on the Hogwarts express platform. They were well concealed in a clump of snowy bushes, resolutely ignoring the steady trickle of melting snow down the backs of their necks  
'There it is!' James hissed in his friend's ear, pointing at a black lacquered trunk a pug nosed little house elf had just added to the pile.  
The reason the pair or mischief makers were hiding in a clump of very uncomfortable bushes was sitting in a well covered bucket beside them. Around a hundred live crickets chirped merrily away from inside, unaware of their fate.  
The plan was simple. It was Christmas time and many of the students were leaving for home, this included one Severus Snape. James and Sirius planned to wait until the cost was clear, grab his trunk and fill it with **a bucket full of crickets.**  
Not a very complex plan, but fun all the same. It was a shame they couldn't manage to think up a way of getting a picture of his face when he opened the trunk, but they had been pressed for time.  
'Coast clear yet?' Sirius whispered, checking on the insects by peeking under the lid.  
'Nah, still a few students in sight and... Whoa, **Lily** Evans, damn, she looks fine... do you think she'd mind if I stowed away in her trunk…?' James goggled, sticking his head out a bit from the bushes.  
Lily was handing her beautiful ebony trunk to an industrious house elf, while she herself was muffled up in rich deep blue faux furs.  
Sirius corked his friends arm  
'Keep your mind on business, Romeo…' He said, rolling his eyes.  
James rubbed his arm sullenly, and then grabbed his partner in crime in a headlock, beginning a short, friendly scuffle…

Severus** Snape** rubbed his arms impatiently. The sooner he got out of here, the better. Another half a year of rivalry with the pathetically named "Marauders" almost over and he was eager to get on with it.  
Besides, Avery had promised to swap some chocolate frog cards with him on the train, as well as some new hexes he had learnt. Suddenly Snape stopped. He'd put his cards in his trunk! Hurriedly he made his way over to the pile of luggage, brushing aside a questioning house elf contemptuously, and climbing over the mound to hunt out his own black lacquered affair.  
Finding his with ease, pretty much on top of the pile, he dragged it off to one side, grabbed his cards from the top before locking it again and hurrying off to find a compartment before the train filled up too far…

Unfortunately, the pair of troublemakers had been too involved in the scuffle to notice Snape's slight alteration, so when it was over, both resuming their positions, looking a little more pink cheeked and untidy then before, it took them a little while to spot a black trunk again.  
'I swear it was over there before…' James scratched his head, squinting at a black trunk, now off to the right  
'Whatever- can we move? The elves'll be packing this stuff up soon…' Sirius said, flipping his hands and checking the crickets again  
'Looks like the coast is clear' James whispered, daring to stick his head out and look around, giving Sirius the thumbs up.

Silently as snowflakes, the pair tiptoed, stifling giggles to the black trunk on top of the pile. The Alohamora charm unlocked the shiny ebony trunk, but instead of simply pouring the bugs in and tearing off as they planned, they stood dumbfounded.  
The trunk was full of neatly folded girl's robes, novels on scary girl things, like horses, and a small bag of lavender potpourri.  
'Do you think there's something Snape isn't telling us?' James grinned, hooking out a pair of pink and frilly ladies underwear. Sirius gave a muffled snort of laughter.  
'Not unless he's changed houses, this is a Gryffindor's trunk, dolt!' he scorned, pointing at a red and gold scarf, but through an amused grin. James hastily dropped the knickers  
'Hope it's not Gunta Avisbrook's!' Jams shuddered. Sirius smirked, peering at the contents  
'Couldn't be, the panties are WAY too small, here…' He flipped open a book with his wand tip 'Lily Evans. Hey sport, looks like your dreams have come true all at once! Go on, hop in!'  
But James wasn't amused at all. In fact, he was a shade of green Sirius hadn't seen before, and was looking off towards the school grounds  
'What's up?'  
Now, although squirrels tended to be fairly dormant in wintertime, the squirrels of Hogwarts were always pretty active around the Hogwarts Express platform, because it was here any number of tasty treats were dropped or left before and after arrival or departure.  
And it was one of these squirrels that had mistaken Lily's Cupcake icing pink knickers for a possible treat…  
'That… squirrel... It's got Lily's… Oh god…' James said in a shaking voice, before taking off after it, waving his arms and screaming at it to put that down.  
Puzzled and behind the times, Sirius followed to find out what had suddenly overtaken his friend.  
And so it was on the way back towards the castle when Sirius met **Peter** and **Remus**, strolling casually through the snow.  
'There you are!' Remus sighed happily 'We've been looking for you all morning…'  
'Not too hard I see…' Sirius grinned, noting their casual pace  
'Not really, I was pretty sure you could get into enough trouble without us. Where were you anyway?' The werewolf quipped, falling into stride with Sirius.  
'Down at the station…' He said a bit evasively.  
'Don't tell me you went through with that stupid cricket idea…' Remus sighed.  
'I didn't think it was stupid! I thought it was cool!' Peter piped in, clearly wanting to impress the "cooler" Sirius.  
'You would.' Remus said sullenly 'Where's James got to anyway?' He asked, changing the subject.  
Sirius shrugged 'Dunno, we opened Lily's case by accident and he just took off saying something about a squirrel…'  
Remus looked shocked and a little disturbed 'You're okay with this?'  
'I'm following him…' he said a bit defensively. Remus sighed and squinted ahead.  
'Isn't that him up there, near the Whomping Willow?' He asked, shielding his eyes from the glare. Sirius squinted.  
'Think so, c'mon….'

James wasn't having ANY luck. The squirrel apparently made its home in the Whomping willow, and even after prodding the knot, the effects wouldn't last long. He just hoped it'd only take a minute to repossess Lily's undergarments…  
He shimmied up the trunk and scuttled along a broad branch when below he heard  
Remus call up to him.  
'James… **Why _are _you chasing a squirrel up the whomping willow**?'  
He looked down and swore. Underneath, looking up, Sirius, Peter and Remus all gazed up at him.  
'If you MUST know that damn squirrel took Lily's undies and I'd rather risk breaking my neck to get them back then explain it…' He said through gritted teeth, edging along the arrowing branch. 'Heeeere squirrel, squirrel, squirrel...' he coaxed.

On the ground Sirius dissolved instantly into helpless gales of laughter, While Peter put on a very fake laugh. Remus rubbed his temples.  
'Remind me again why we're friends…' he sighed wearily, folding his arms to watch.

James edged along the gradually thinning branch, arm stretching out to snag the appealing little piece of lace and cloth that made up Lily's now precious underwear.  
The squirrel shied away from him, its little beady eyes wide and cautious.  
'Come ON you stupid little creature! Give them BACK!' He made a slight lurching dive to lay hands on the hairy menace, but at that moment the Whomping Willow returned to its original state, catapulting poor James from the branch right into the air, his limbs flailing, describing a splendid arc across the winter sky before landing with a thud in a snow drift, feet up.

The squirrel, obviously used to its home's rather violent temperament hung on tenaciously until the willow had stopped moving, before scampering off and trying to nibble on the lacy pink lingerie. It was quite obviously not edible, so it dropped it, and ran off into the upper branches and vanished in a hole.  
Remus, smiled mildly and picked up the small and much fussed over knickers, before sauntering over to James who was groggily getting up, soaked to the skin.  
'Looking for these?' He grinned broadly, tossing them to his friend.  
'Thanks! Geeze, you saved my butt there…' James breathed, getting up, examining the knickers. They were a little chewed from the squirrel, a little dirty from the fall and rather wet from the snow, but what Lily didn't know, wouldn't hurt her…  
'C'mon, Let's put these back and finish what we came here for.

They jogged back to the station, and paused briefly as Sirius fetched the crickets.  
James skidded up to Lily's trunk, opening it hurriedly.  
'Uuuuh, James?' Remus said nervously, tapping him on the shoulder. James swatted him away.  
'Not NOW Remus!' he snapped, fishing around in his pockets and pulling out the underwear  
'No, James, you better look…' Sirius said sounding a little unnerved. James swore and looked up.  
And stopped dead.  
Lily Evans stood with her arms folded and her expression dark, she was tapping her foot angrily.  
'Lily!' James said in what he clearly thought was a winning voice. Her expression didn't change as she snatched her underwear back.  
'WHAT were you doing with my underwear?' She snapped, furious. James looked around for help. Peter looked terrified and Remus had a "well you deserve it" look, Sirius just shrugged.  
'Well, to tell you the truth it was little joke on Snivilus, we were planning to put those crickets in his trunk, but got mixed up and a squirrel grabbed your knickers and yeah, I was putting them back…' he said it all too quickly, gesturing to the bucket Sirius was holding. Lily looked at his suspiciously then over at Sirius.  
'May I?' she asked in honeyed tones, holding her small hand out for the bucket. Sirius shrugged and bowed slightly handing it over. She peeked inside, smiled sweetly, and upturned the lot on James' head, **covering him with crickets**.  
'You are the MOST, unbelievable, insensitive, piggish oaf I have EVER met!' She screamed, storming off, her knickers clenched in her hand.  
'I take it that means any hope of you stowing away in her trunk is dashed, eh?' Sirius said mildly, flicking a cricket away. 'Come on you piggish oaf, lets go back to the common room and warm up and dry off…' he smirked, linking arms with his cricket encrusted and totally stunned friend, before letting vent to peals of laughter that followed them up to the castle.


End file.
